


Mountains Beyond Mountains

by CloudAtlas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby has dealt with many dead bodies before, but it has never been as difficult as this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mountains Beyond Mountains

**Author's Note:**

> Post S6 if S6 ended like [this](http://countingbodieslikesheep.tumblr.com/post/3286764493/if-supernatural-ends-this-season-this-is-how-it-should). Thanks to [hells_half_acre](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hells_half_acre/works) for betaing. Crossposted from my LJ.
> 
> Title from Arcade Fire, lyric from Regina Spektor.

_I’m the hero of this story, don’t need to be saved._

-

It’s 12.56pm on the 2nd of November when Bobby turns around to find Castiel standing in the middle of his front room looking the closest Bobby’s ever seen him to upset. Normally Bobby would say something, swear at him for sneaking up on him, giving him no warning. But he stops short, snapping his mouth shut with an audible click. Cas stares at him; his eyes the bluest Bobby has ever seen. Then he takes a breath, closes his eyes and says “Dean and Samuel Winchester are dead.”

-

Bobby now knows why Dean always complained about the way Cas travels. It really does fuck with your system.

Bobby finds himself stood on the side of a road. He doesn’t know where, but he recognises the car. The Impala is parked indiscriminately, half on the tarmac and half on the verge, skid marks running from the tires. From where he is standing he can see that the shotgun door is open, but nothing else. He looks over at Cas but Cas isn’t looking at him. His eyes are fixed on the car as if he’s trying to commit it to memory.

Bobby is pretty sure he doesn’t want to be here. He squares his shoulders, crosses the road and walks round the car.

There are a lot of things Bobby wishes he could have known or seen or not known or not seen. Top of this list is the wish that he had known exorcisms earlier so instead of growing old owning multiple shotguns and a panic room, he could have grown old with a wife and children and mantel full of family photos.

All the other things are small wishes compared to that one, and to be honest he’s never really been one for keeping lists and wondering endlessly about _what ifs_. But he knows now, this bringing it home to him in startling clarity; running a very close second to wishing his wife was still alive is wishing that Heaven and Hell had left Sam and Dean Winchester the fuck alone.

Bobby’s not entirely sure what to do with his hands. He’s not entirely sure he can stop himself from taking the nearest gun (right in front of him, by Dean’s body) and shooting the holy hell out of the first living thing he comes across (which would be Cas and he doesn’t deserve that).

Sam is lying on his back near the open car door. The skin on his hands is rubbed raw. There is a single bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

Dean is lying slumped next to him. His pistol lies between him and his brother. His brains are covering the ground around his head.

Bobby knows immediately what happened here.

-

Bobby has dealt with many dead bodies before, but it has never been as difficult as this.

Cas helps him get Sam and Dean’s bodies into the back of the Impala. He’s supposed to wrap them in something, lay them down, treat them like the dead bodies they are, but he can’t. He buckles them into the back seat and tips their heads against the windows.

Dean left the keys in the ignition. Bobby expects Cas to leave, go where ever it is that the angel disappears to when he’s not looking after the Unthanked Saviours of the World. But he doesn’t. Cas regards Bobby solemnly for a moment. Then the car. Then the bodies in the back seat. He then opens the door and settles in shotgun.

Bobby doesn’t know where they are but he works it out pretty quickly. During the four and a half hours it takes to get back to Souix Falls the only sound inside the Impala is Sam and Dean’s heads knocking against the windows.

-

Bobby can’t bring himself to burn Sam and Dean quite yet, so he empties the Impala, a vague plan forming in his mind. He keeps the Colt, Ruby’s knife and what Cas tells him is the remains of a dragon killing sword. The rest is put in storage, ready for the next hunter who comes around needing extra silver bullets or another machete. He keeps John’s journal, found carefully put away in a box in the trunk; a box, Bobby discovers, which is full of old family photos. He takes one and tucks it inside the journal. The rest will get burned. The clothes will go to Goodwill, the trash in the bin. He finds some Lego in the footwell and has to blink back tears.

He never liked Dean’s music but he keeps every tape he finds.

He and Cas don’t say a word to each other the whole evening, but after night falls they collect firewood for the pyre, knowing it is time. They wrap Sam and Dean in cloth, cover them in salt and put the box of photos between them. Bobby is pretty sure the blaze is big enough to be seen for miles around.

He and Cas stay until it burns out.

-

The next day Cas is nowhere to be found so Bobby begins to strip the Impala. The wheels, engine, clutch and electronics (what little there is) are all kept for parts. He removes the glass and the plastic until all that is left is the Detroit steel that Dean was so proud of.

Bobby makes a call.

Cas turns up mid-afternoon. He doesn’t say where he’s been but emerges from the house moments later with a single urn. Bobby thinks it’s fitting. Sam and Dean were never _really_ two separate people.

They bury the urn just outside the boundary of Bobby’s yard. It’s covered in protective symbols. Cas reassures Bobby that no one is ever going to bring them back again. For others this would be less than comforting; to Bobby it’s the best thing he’s heard all day.

In the freshly turned earth Cas plants two silver birch. Bobby snorts and says that it’s less than fitting, then listens to Cas tell him that according Teutonic myth, the last battle of the world will be fought around a birch tree. _May they serve as a reminder_ he says.

Bobby is silent for a moment and then says _well at least it’s not anything biblical_ and Cas doesn’t even look hurt. _They will stand here for as long as I exist_ he says.

-

Two days later a man turns up and takes away the rest of the Impala. Cas doesn’t ask and Bobby doesn’t tell.

-

The next day Cas leaves, not unannounced like usual though. He finds Bobby in the yard and they drink beer and look out over the scrap metal and scarred ground to the silver birch beyond the boundary. Bobby can’t be sure but he thinks it’s grown at least a foot in the past three days. Damn angels and their mojo. Cas asks if he’ll be alright and Bobby scoffs and answers _‘course_. They sit in silence for a while longer and then Cas puts down his empty bottle.

Bobby wonders when he got so accustomed to an angel drinking his beer and not even looking uncomfortable while doing it.

As Cas turns to go Bobby says _Cas, wait_ and when the angel turns round he says _thank you_. Cas nods once and then he’s gone.

-

While Bobby is going through Sam’s duffel, sorting the salvageable clothes from the bloody rags, he finds an engagement ring looped trough the chord of Dean’s amulet.

This was never supposed to have been their life.

-

Two weeks later a man turns up with a box. Inside are four beautifully crafted knives, the steel blades gleaming dully. The man says _That was all I could make. Car steel is not good for knives._ Bobby thanks him and looks at them closely. On one side of each blade is a pentagram. On the other, the letter W. As the man leaves the house he looks over his shoulder and says _I used the seat leather for the handles_ and then _Those blades feel strange. Powerful._

Bobby Singer smiles to himself. _I’m not surprised_ he says.

-

_In Souix Falls, South Dakota there stand two trees. No, look closely, count them, there are two. They stand on the edge of an area that was clearly once occupied by a house with a large yard. The house is no longer there, only crumbling foundations and rusting metal remain._

_People used to come and visit those trees around the same time as the house still stood there; an odd mix of people. A mother and son who laughed half-heartedly when one suggested that they should have brought flowers; a maternal looking black woman who stood for a long while with her eyes closed before smiling to herself and leaving; a brother and sister who whispered thank yous to the air. Other people came too; there was no pattern and the visitors were infrequent until they stopped all together. Somehow the place felt safe._

_And if people noticed that the trees were surprisingly old for that species, then no one mentioned it. And if people saw that on the 2nd of November every year a man with dark hair and a trench coat would appear by the trees and stand underneath their boughs until the sun rose again – well, no one mentioned that either. Not even when the shadows made it look as though the man had wings._


End file.
